More stuff is coming, though I'm still undecided in which thematic direction to steer this project. But I'm certain the stuff on it will fit in somewhere around 19th century...

A focus on the scrolls with blurred background would be nice yes, but its a no-go for this project, because shallow dof would add to much render time, cause its very slow to clear. But I'll certainly do one such "side-render".

eidy wrote:Possible direction :A treasure map with an octane logo tweaked to mark a mystical a sea vortex ... And the actual treasure being another mark with your credentials maybe?

Interesting, thanks

I was thinking about a "scientific" scene, oriented toward astronomy, as you can see in the next fast & grainy small update. I'm in the process of modeling a small telescope too. I haven't considered embedding an Octane logo at all, but maybe if I find a subtle way to put it there...

A sidenote of interest:

if I set a high aperture and focus the camera on the magnifying glass surface, shouldn't the refracted image inside be a bit more sharper and not completely blurred, on the same level as the background?

Images on the left have 0.0 aperture, on the right have 1.0, with the focus point on the lens. I don't have a magnifying glass to check this out, but I googled for some photos which would seem to confirm my assumption. Like this one

if I set a high aperture and focus the camera on the magnifying glass surface, shouldn't the refracted image inside be a bit more sharper and not completely blurred, on the same level as the background?

Images on the left have 0.0 aperture, on the right have 1.0, with the focus point on the lens. I don't have a magnifying glass to check this out, but I googled for some photos which would seem to confirm my assumption. Like this one

The picture doesn't have the magnifying glass in focus. I think you should focus on a point somewhere behind the map.

@roeland, hm, will do some more tests. Its a bit hard to set the focus point by number, instead of picking the surface.

Anyway, I almost finished modeling the telescope, but I scratched the furniture stuff from the previous renders. Instead I will put the scope on a Octane logo, covered with some fabric, and that will function as a "table".

I've done a fast sculpt, which will have to polish it a bit more. Ill have to do retopology too, which is damn annoying... In this case it would be really useful if Octane could be able to automatically map image textures, instead of having to relay only on UV coordinates. At least a global auto-maping like we have for procedural textures.

The materials are also not final yet. cca 50sec for each frame on GTX 570: